TOKYO V

Although he is from the land of the rising sun, Masashi Wakui does not appear to witness this daily event! The night-owl photographer sublimates the Japanese capital after dark, when the stores have rolled down their doors, billboards glow on the façades of buildings, and traditional lanterns hanging at the entrances to restaurants have replaced the sun's rays. With a great deal of talent and finesse, each of the images taken in one of Tokyo's many neighbourhoods tells us a tale about a part of the city. From Shibuya to Itabashi, Machida to Nihonbashi, the saturated colours lend a highly cinematographic effect to the photographer's work, who brings his wide-angle lens on his urban explorations. The spectator thus discovers the more intimate, humane, dark but also authentic sides to the city.

Tokyo is the main source of inspiration of the Japanese photographer Masashi Wakui, who specialises in nocturnal views of urban landscapes. Born in 1978, he brings an entrancing and poetic eye to the Japanese capital, which he continually captures in the course of his nocturnal wanderings. His introduction to photography took place in 2012 on a shooting platform, when discovering a new camera that enabled him to extract fixed images of shots taken by filming a scene in very high definition. He became more and more interested and thus produced his first photographs, later modifying the colours and lighting with the help of retouching software. Masashi Wakui finds inspiration in the film world, where he has worked on a daily basis since 1999. His photographs in cosy colours evoke the mystical and surrealistic atmospheres of Japanese comic strips and animations, whether these are mangas like Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow and Akira by Katsuhiro Ã”tomo or productions by the illustrious Studio Ghibli.